


The Image in the Mirror

by soo



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:11:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soo/pseuds/soo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternative ending to Mirror Image.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Image in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partly/gifts).



> Thanks to elynross, who on top of running this little thing called yuletide took time out to be a sounding board and beta read this story.

His surroundings came into focus, and Sam looked around the darkened room. "Georgia" was playing softly in the background. His gaze came to rest upon Beth. He knew without even having to ask that he was back during that fateful weekend in April of '69. The weekend she lost all hope that Al was going to return to her; the weekend she met the man who would become her second husband.

Beth turned and saw him. "Who are you? How did you get in here?" she asked, startled by his appearance in her house, but strangely unafraid.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help you and Al." He tried to look as unthreatening as possible.

"Are you a friend of Al's?"

"Yes." He glanced toward the couch. "Can we sit down?"

Beth hesitated for a moment, but moved over to the couch.

As they both sat down, Sam reached out and took her hands gently in his. "I'm going to tell you a story. It will have a happy ending, but only if you believe me."

"What if I don't believe you?"

"You will." He stroked her hand. "Instead of starting at the beginning of the story, I'll go right to the happy ending." Inhaling deeply, he uttered the words that he had longed to do so many leaps ago. "Al is alive and is coming home."

He smiled as she began to cry. "He loves you," Sam whispered, and he leaped.

Sam blinked in surprise when he saw that he was once again standing in front of Al's Place. He looked up and down the quiet mining town street. No one was about, and it was unearthly quiet. Spotting movement inside the bar, he strode towards it. This time God or Time or Al or whatever the bartender wanted to call himself was going to tell him the truth. He pushed open the doors and made a beeline to the bartender.

The other man looked up in shock and nearly dropped the glass he'd been drying. "I didn't expect you back."

"Why wouldn't I be back?" Sam demanded. "You're controlling the leaps!"

Al shook his head sadly. "For a genius, you're not all that smart."

He slumped down on the stool in front of the other man. "If you or God didn't do it, then who did?"

"You." The bartender poured Sam a beer and set it before him.

Sam shook his head. "I didn't believe you before, and I still don't believe you."

"Then you're going to be stuck here for an awfully long time." The bartender turned away and resumed washing glasses.

Sam's eyes narrowed as he watched the other man ignore him. He racked his brain for some explanation for why he was leaping in time, if he was the one doing it, but he couldn't think of one. The math and the physics had been perfect. And even if it hadn't been, he knew that the top minds of his time were working on the problem; he knew deep down that Al wouldn't let them give up. So he had always assumed that something or someone had interfered with the Project. God, Time, Fate, whatever you wanted to call it. And while he didn't think he or the Project was infallible, it was the most reasonable explanation. Why else would he have to fix something that had previously gone wrong before he could leap again?

It had to be something or someone else. It couldn't all be him, could it?

He shook his head. It couldn't be. But it seemed that the only way he was going to get information from the bartender was if he humored him. He hoped that whoever was watching this was getting a good laugh out of it. He sighed and took a sip of his beer. "How can I be leaping myself?"

Al turned back towards Sam. He came around the bar and sat down oon a stool next to Sam. "What were you thinking about right before you leapt?"

"I told you that I had a wrong to put right for Al."

"But what were you thinking?"

He stopped and thought back to the moment before he leaped. "That if I was leaping myself, then I would've saved Al's marriage long ago."

"Sounds like you leaped yourself to me."

"But you knew!"

"Did I? You could've put right so many things for Al. You could've rescued him from the Viet Cong, or from the orphanage. You could've saved his sister, Trudy. I could go on and on."

Sam paused. He hadn't thought about that. There were so many things that he could've put right for Al, but it had always been his deepest regret that he hadn't saved Al's marriage to Beth. While some of Al's problems stemmed from his time in Vietnam, it had been the loss of Beth that had broken him. His love for her had carried him through years of pain and torture at the hands of the Viet Cong, only to return home to find that she'd had him declared dead, and had remarried.

Maybe he _had_ leaped himself -- at least just this once. He wasn't so sure about the rest of the leaps.

He toyed with the idea for a bit, and then decided to just ask. "Say I believe you. What about all those other times where I leapt into someone that I didn't know?"

"You wanted to help people, so you found people to help."

"How?" Sam frowned. "I couldn't have just randomly chosen people."

"Well, there you had a little help." Al glanced heavenwards. "Occasionally, you might have been pushed in a certain direction. But you could've stopped at any time. Gone home at any time."

"Then how do I get home?"

"You just want it."

Sam shook his head in disbelief. "I've been wanting it for a long time now."

"Have you?"

"I..." Sam trailed off. He _had_ wanted to go home. But he had also wanted to continue helping people. Had his desire to help people overridden his desire to go home? It was a good possibility, because even now, he still wanted to help people. He still wanted to put right what had once gone wrong. "If I go home, what about those other people that you said needed help?"

"There are other people to help them." The bartender grinned. "Like Stawpah."

Sam's eyebrow rose. So he had been right; Stawpah, Al's uncle, had been another leaper. "So I could go home and rest. Be with my family and friends. Do what I want to do."

"Yes."

"And if I want to help people again?"

The bartender laughed. "You still have a time machine at your disposal."

Sam grinned. "That I do." And he finally leaped home.

  



End file.
